To celebrate the launch, Unilever Food Solutions has teamed up with In a Pub to give you the chance to win a ‘Ridiculously Versatile’ menu makover and £1,000.

To be in with the chance of winning, simply log on to www.knorrcreatemore.co.uk and watch the video of our chef, Versatility Steve, doing something versatile with Create More sauce and answer a simple question, along with your name, pub name, email and telephone number.

Question: What does our chef, Versatility Steve, wash in Create More sauce?

Six runners up will also win three cases of Create More Sauce. So what are you waiting for? So, check out the full story on In a Pub here.

To celebrate British Sandwich Week, which runs from 12 to 18 May, The Cavendish, based on fashionable Jermyn Street in the heart of London, has taken the humble sandwich online.

The hotel’s chefs have come up with three new sandwiches and are asking its Facebook fans to vote on their favourite.

The sandwiches up for the vote are:

• Wicks Manor dry cured bacon, Cashel blue cheese and homemade kicking ketchup on rosemary bread
• Wicks Manor pulled pork, red pepper, red onion and piccalilli sauce on multiseed bloomer bread
• Paxton & Whitfield’s Aldwych goat’s cheese, baby spinach and red onion chutney on walnut & date bread

The winning sarnie will go on sale in the hotel’s lounge, bar and will be available through room service.  From each sandwich sold The Cavendish will donate £2 to Hospitality Action to support their weeklong fundraising, which falls at the same time as British Sandwich Week.

What’s your favourite? Tweet us at @WilliamMurrayPR or have a look at www.facebook.com/cavendishlondon to vote!

Voting finishes on Saturday 11 May!

- Harriet

We’re actually talking about the NEW book launched by Women 1^st – The Little Book of Diversity to support women in the workplace.

Written by Women 1^st founder Sharon Glancy, equality and diversity consultant Samantha Mercer and People 1^st research manager Karen Roberts; the book provides guidance to businesses in the industry who want to increase the number of women in senior positions as well as providing a guide for female employees to achieve their career ambitions.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the book and the catchy title!

Back for a second year as part of British Roast Dinner Week, sponsored by Knorr Gravy and supported by Colman’s, the competition is open to all UK operators serving a roast on their menu.

Sarah Branagan, category manager at Knorr explains: “Roast dinners top the list of things consumers love about Britain. We want to reward the operator whose meats are magnificent, whose tatties are tip top, and whose Yorkshires leave their customers yearning for more.

“So if you think you’re a cut above the rest – and are convinced you can give the competition a roasting – log on to www.britishroastdinnerweek.co.uk and nominate yourself now.”

The competition closes on 2 September, with the regional shortlist announced on 9 September. The top five finalists will then be shortlisted and visited by a mystery diner to determine the Best British Roast Dinner.

The winning operator will be crowned with the Best British Roast Dinner title at the start of British Roast Dinner Week, which runs from 30 September – 6 October 2013.

They suggest this is based on:

• Strong Government leadership and a clear food strategy.
• Effective consumer engagement on food issues.
• A more consumer-focused DEFRA and a stronger Food Standards Agency.
• A greater Government focus on clear pricing and long-term affordability.
• Enabling consumers to make healthy, sustainable and informed food choices.

The report suggests that 7 in 10 people have confidence in food safety when buying food in supermarkets, compared with 9 in 10 prior to the horsemeat scandal.  The question remains, how does this impact our industry?  How are consumers processing this information when they’re eating out of home, and how can we as an industry give them confidence in what they’re eating?

Take a look at some of their consumer vox pops here and let us know your thoughts.

There’s lots of talk about interns being taken for granted in our industry.  Should they be paid?  Are they treated in the same way as your full-time employees?

We took the decision last year to take on an intern and it’s been one of the best things we’ve done as an agency.  Not only did we pay our intern a fair salary, we also treated them as a full-time employee.  Taking on an intern is a two-way deal – if we didn’t give anything, we knew we wouldn’t get the best out of our intern.  Danielle Humphries joined us from Bournemouth University as a Junior Account Executive and excelled at everything she turned her hand to.  Not only did she become an integral part of the team, but she also became a trusted advisor to some of our clients.

Sadly, Danielle has left us to head back to University (after a stint travelling over the summer) and we wish her good luck in her studies and for the future.  We’ve had such a great experience this year that we’ve decided to extend our intern programme further and will be taking on two new third-year students studying for their PR degrees this year.  Our first new Junior Account Executive, Harriet Richmond, has just joined the team and is already making her mark!

This is something we are really passionate about and were recently quoted in PR Weekon this topic.

Waitrose already exports to 45 countries – could this expand their business further.  This is definitely a story to keep an eye on…

This week the Government recruited restaurateurs Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent to advise on how to improve the standard of school lunches, so kids will be tempted to switch from junk-filled packed lunches to a healthier hot meal.

It’s become easier for parents to fill packed lunches with crisps, chocolate bars and fizzy drinks. So how can the government compete with the tasty and cheap alternative?

Dimbleby and Vincent, supported by top chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Raymond Blanc and Annabel Karmel have set their sights on making school meals ‘cool’ in a bid to tempt kids to switch from their beloved packed lunch.

A ‘five year plan’ from the restaurateurs will be published in May, outlining their healthy intentions for school meals. The blueprint is predicted to showcase schools at the forefront of the school dinner revolution, such as Petchey Academy in London, which has already banned homemade sandwiches.

School dinners just aren’t what they used to be- gone are the days of sloppy ‘just add water’ mash. It has been scientifically proven that a hot cooked meal at lunchtime is now healthier than a packed lunch. If the Government manages to get the price right, are the days of the packed lunch numbered?

But what will this mean for families? Will it be compulsory? Will kids who bring in packed lunches not considered cool anymore? Only the report will tell.

I can’t see a great amount of resistance to this initiative since Jamie Oliver cooked the country’s dinner ladies into shape. Let us know what you think by tweeting us @WilliamMurrayPR  #RIPlunches

- Harriet Richmond

It’s been a busy month here at William Murray attending industry events across London. We let our CEO Karen and Anita loose at the preview event of Jason Atherton’s new restaurant, the Social Eating House.

It was a great event with a delicious five course menu, including curried halibut and for dessert salted caramel ice-cream. More importantly lots of money raised for Hospitality Action.

Thanks to a lively charity auction, they managed to raise a huge £29,000- Anita and Karen were bidding on absolutely everything of course but came back empty handed after being pipped to the post!

All in all it was a fantastic night with wonderful food and a great deal of money being raised for a good cause. A high five from us for Jason Atherton and Hospitality Action!

And also, does anyone know who the man behind the pillar was!? He was bidding on each lot during the auction and causing quite a stir. It has been intriguing us all to no end so if you know who the man is, let us know!

Our CEO Karen, along with Mark Linehan and Ed Franklin from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) and Tracey Rogers from Unilever, went to visit The Newman Street Tavern in London.

This restaurant has been open for four months under chef Peter Weedon, of The Boundary in Shoreditch, Coq d’Argent and Quaglino’s fame.

Peter’s main inspiration and emphasis for this restaurant is on seasonal produce which is sourced from around the UK. More importantly, everything they do at The Newman Street Tavern is sustainable.

On the menu was Helford Fish & Shellfish Gratin included a Smooth Hound fish in the dish which is sustainably sourced from the shark family. And with the restaurant serving 41 different species of fin fish on their menu since opening diners are spoilt for choice!

They also source a lot of dairy products from Mary Holbrook, who rears ‘Kid’ goats in a healthy and happy way and to a size their milk can be used for restaurants, without calves being destroyed once they have served their purpose- the milk from her goats provided the aptly named special of the day, ‘Mary’s Kid’.

Off the back of the Duck and Waffle and Fat Duck’s of this generation, The Newman Street Tavern has gone one step further and not only has interesting, flavourful food but also ticks all the green boxes with it being fully sustainable. It gets a thumbs up from us!